What is the difference between Text Messages and SMTP Text Messages?

06 Sep 2010

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	What is the difference between Text Messages and SMTP Text Messages?

Solution Universal Alert offers you two ways to send text messages, each having their own advantages.

Text Messaging – this method is sent directly via our SMS gateway. We can guarantee that the message was sent, and this method is very reliable. The only instances of delivery failure are due to lack of coverage by the destination device, and thus out of anyone's control. This method does have a cost associated with each message sent, and thus will cause your system to use up billable message credits.
SMTP Text Messages – many firms offer this, but don’t explain it properly and simply offer you ‘unlimited text messages’. We offer this option, but don’t try to hide the fact that these are being sent in a less reliable manner. We do not charge per message fees for these either. SMTP text messages are messages that are emailed to the cellular provider of the recipient for delivery as an SMS text message. It is up to the cellular carrier to deliver it at that point, which they usually do. However, if the messages are sent in any large volume, or if the carrier’s message queue is overloaded, they will often decide to drop the messages and not deliver them. This is the cause of many failures for similar systems to ours, and thus we offer both this method when cost is a factor, and the more reliable method mentioned above when assured delivery is more important.

To sum up, Text Messages are sent via our own SMS gateway and offer high reliability at a small per message cost. SMTP Text Messages are sent via email to the wireless carrier and are slightly less reliable, although they are free and unlimited.

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22 Jul 2009 12:21 PM